Artist Biographies

The Blurring the Boundaries project is developed by a core team of three artists: David Bobier, Gift Tshuma, and Charles Matthews. We hope to introduce you to our collaborators in due course, but for now, here are some words about what we do.

VibraFusionLab/David Bobier

VibraFusionLab is a development lab, educational centre, and presentation space where artists from around the world merge to add the sense of touch to their performances and works. Vibration arts, for the body.

VibraFusionLab was conceived by David Bobier, critically acclaimed artist, in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

VibraFusionLab promotes and supports the creation of new accessible art forms, focuses on inclusive technologies that have the potential of expanding artmaking practices, and investigates new experiences of sensory accessibility for artists and audiences of all abilities.

Gift Tshuma

Gift Tshuma – born in Zimbabwe, is not your ordinary R&B Gospel singer. Gift is the co- founder and leader of his talented ensemble: United Tribulation Choir, which he founded twelve years ago.

He is a strong supporter of diversity, and he extends his reach by singing in multiple languages and performing in a broad array of styles.

Gift carries with him more than fifteen years of experience as a profession artist, in addition to his academic background in music. He has trained in classical and jazz vocals, and was mentored by Oliver Jones: a Montreal-based jazz pianist who was in turn trained by Oscar Peterson.

As a disability rights advocate and co-founding member of a grassroots group: Accessibilize Montreal, he has worked on numerous initiatives targeting discriminatory infrastructure, that stigmatises and excludes people with diverse bodies and minds from public spaces.

Charles Matthews

Charles Matthews is a proudly Neurodivergent creative technologist, who specialises in rapid prototyping of musical instruments in workshop settings. In past lives he has released bass-heavy records as Ardisson and founded the Augmented Gamelan ensemble.

Since 2015, Charles has worked as an associate artist with Drake Music: a UK organisation focused on music technology and Disability, and a pioneer of accessible music hack events through its DMLab community. Recent projects include: The Kellycaster, Planted Symphony, and Haptic Baton.

Charles is developing workshops with Gift Tshuma and Education Makers at Milieux Institute in Montreal, where he has recently been invited to become maker in residence. He began adapting instrument building techniques for direct collaboration with dancers at the ImPArt Summit in Germany this year.

As well as joining the VibraFusionLab collective this year, he has recently become a research associate at Ryerson University’s Responsive Ecologies Lab, and Maker in Residence at MilieuxMake.